Computer rendered graphics have come to play an important role in the production of a variety of entertainment content types. For example computer rendered graphics are regularly used to generate virtual environments for use in feature films and animation. These virtual environments can contain many individual geometric features, such as millions of individual features, and that number may grow as virtual environments continue to grow visually richer and more sophisticated. However, the very numerousness of the individual geometric features included in a virtual environment can undesirably slow the rendering of global illumination for that virtual environment. Moreover, in some instances, the computing resources required for representation of the virtual environment can exceed the memory storage capacity or processor throughput capability of a computing platform used to render the global illumination.